February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
They are among the 47 people to have received the honor of Cork’s “Freedom of the City” award since 1887. And some time this summer, whenever a ceremony of suitable pomp can be arranged, Roy Keane and Sonia O’Sullivan will be similarly honored in a joint celebration.
It’s about time too. For reflecting so much glory back on their native county, the pair of them have been long overdue this recognition.
“I felt there was a need to acknowledge the sporting culture of the city,” said Lord Mayor Sean Martin. “Sonia has been a great ambassador, a world champion. And I felt there was a need to acknowledge the football culture of the city too. Roy is one of the greatest footballers this country has ever produced.”
Unfortunately, Martin’s good intentions have drawn inevitable and justified criticism about the failure to include Denis Irwin in this citation. Most people assumed and hoped that when the city fathers finally got their act together and conferred this accolade on Keane, it would be in tandem with his former Manchester United teammate.
Indeed, in any other city in the world, the councilors might have had the wit and wherewithal to do this sometime after the culmination of the 1999 season when the two Corkmen played such pivotal roles in the Premier League Championship’s finest-ever campaign.
Whatever the spurious political reasons led the denizens of Cork Corporation to not celebrate that unique achievement then, the omission of Irwin now is baffling and insulting. We shouldn’t need to revisit the minutiae of his career, but given the myopia of some of our native politicians, it might be helpful to remind them.
The man from Togher only played 902 professional games, yet won a mere seven Premiership titles, a solitary European Cup, a trifling Cup Winners’ Cup, and a meager three FA Cups. Not to mention 56 Irish caps.
There are so many reasons why Irwin deserved to be held up by the city and vaunted as one of its greatest-ever ambassadors, that it seems churlish to have to recite each and every one of his successes.
Reiterating his greatness for those with short memories might help the occupants of the city chambers to remember that here was a footballer who carried himself with dignity and class on and off the field during more than two decades in the international spotlight.
Trying to unearth a negative column inch about Irwin is an impossible job, and yet his reward for this brand of understated excellence is to be so easily forgotten just a year after retiring.
The point of this is not to detract from Keane or Sonia, either. Both of them are incredibly worthy — and belated — recipients of this symbolic gesture. The fact is though that by finally gathering some consensus in City Hall, Sean Martin has also shone a light into a dark corner of our civic pride, reminding us how badly we’ve treated our native athletes down the decades.
Of the 47 previous honorees, just two — former GAA President and distinguished Cork hurler, Con Murphy, and six-times All-Ireland medallist Jack Lynch — are from the sporting world. Christy Ring, the greatest of them all, died without ever being asked would he mind being celebrated in this way by the city he bestrode. Politicians from that era should be duly ashamed that he did.
We routinely mock the British for their obsession with MBE’s and OBE’s, but at least they usually get around to acknowledging the greatness of their athletes while the men and women in question are still living.
That the list of those granted the freedom of Cork over the past century includes 20 religious figures, from Cardinals to Brothers, yet boasts just two sportsmen and a single writer (Sean O’Faolain), should strike any sane person as lopsided.
How could anybody reasonably explain why not a single soccer player has ever made the cut before? Former Manchester United and Ireland captain Noel Cantwell didn’t do enough to merit this sort of praise, yet two members of the U.S. military are on the list. In a similar vein, more than a century of Cork rugby hasn’t produced a single individual (Tom Kiernan, anyone?) thought worthy of being given the freedom of the city alongside former archbishops of Port-of-Spain, Adelaide, Los Angeles, Tasmania and Melbourne.
According to the Cork Corporation website, the then-Archbishop Cushing of Boston was given this honor in August of 1958, “in recognition of his practical goodwill towards Ireland and in particular towards the people of the Country (sic) and City of Cork”.
I can’t quibble with the validity of that assertion back then. However, it’s lately been shown following lengthy investigations of the Boston diocese that just a couple of years after being made a freeman of Cork, the late Cardinal Cushing failed to remove known pedophile priests from positions of privilege and authority, thereby allowing them to continue abusing children for a long time after.
At the very least, Sean Martin and his fellow councilors should move to have Cushing’s name struck from the distinguished list of free men and women as early as their next meeting. The same night, they can also finally get around to discussing just how they are going to honor Irwin’s indelible contribution to the sporting history of Cork.
Indeed, Irwin is only one of the people slighted through the decades. As a Nemo Rangers man, Martin need look no farther than his own clubhouse to find somebody else who should long since have received this accolade. It remains impossible to unearth a character that has given more to Gaelic football in the county than Billy Morgan.
The Freedom of the City is supposed to be given to persons “distinguished for public service”. The list of sportsmen and women and administrators to whom that applies is very long. It’s about time Cork Corporation started trying to right a few wrongs.